


Sense Memory

by gleefulmusings



Series: Odds and Ends [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/gleefulmusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five senses, five women, and the memories and lessons of each as carried by Xander.</p><p>A companion piece, perhaps, to <i>Totem</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense Memory

Willow is love and safety and home and it is  
through her eyes that he has come to know  
the beauty of this world. She is the  
lens through which he filters hope and  
possibility and it is because of  
her that he has come  
to realize friends are  
the family one  
chooses for  
themselves.

 

* * *

 

Buffy smells of death. It’s not unpleasant; rather, it’s earthy  
and emphatic, almost sacred, and very much her. She  
tries so hard to be of this world  
when in fact she straddles the line  
between this and the next. She  
brings not death but hope  
and justice and peace,  
even to those  
whom she  
slays.

 

* * *

 

Cordelia’s voice is the sound of integrity, its relentless peal  
ringing in spite of fear, doubt, despair, or discretion.  
It was only when his eyes and heart  
were opened that he realized how desperately  
she is needed. Hers is the  
voice that defies ignorance and  
denial. Hers is a  
truth which can  
never be  
silenced.

 

* * *

 

Faith is the serpent incarnate, twining her fingers through your  
complacency and your defenses and your belt loops, ripping  
them away and laying you bare to the  
world. She is sin and temptation, a  
beguiling emulsion of need and want,  
of sublimated desire and twisted  
innocence reaching out to  
corrupt. Her redemption  
is their  
own.

  

* * *

 

Anya tastes like famine, of hunger long ignored and desperate  
to be sated, a nascent yearning frankness which demands  
knowledge and experience. She is wisdom divorced of  
diplomacy, her childlike wonder awing to those  
long jaded. She is newborn and  
ancient, stolid yet fearful, and  
has chosen him to  
be her guide.  
He is  
grateful.


End file.
